I don't think that this blog post is going to be ground shattering or anything, but I've been thinking about these things and they need to be said to help you and for my mental wellbeing.
My goal is to make this as simple as possible for someone who might be considering an Evo or Evo shift, one who is tired of AT&T , wants to change it up/ see what droid is all about. I applaud you for stepping outside of your comfort zone and looking to other options that might suit you. I went from the Iphone 4 to the evo because
1) ATT gets terrible reception (contrary to their misleading coverage map).
2) I kept putting people on mute and hanging up with them
3) I got a really killer deal w/ Sprint, via a friend. The death grip thing wasn't an issue for me because if I have 1 or 2 bars I am not going to be calling anyone anyway.
4) ATT is retardedly expensive (unless you are on a family plan, and it's still ridiculous)
Good bye iphone 4, HELLO Evo!...well I was kind of excited, the research I did pretty much told me what I was about to figure out.
1) It's pretty big compared to an iphone in your pocket, the screen is really big.
2) It feels kinda cheap (w/out a case) not that I care.
3) 4G is a load of shit, doesn't seem much faster than 3G and KILLS the battery. Don't get sprint or Verizon for 4G it's not worth it.
4) THE BATTERY IS TERRIBLE!!!! If there is one thing that you pull away, extrapolate from my mindless rambling, it should be this. THE BATTERY LIFE OF THIS PHONE IS THE SUX (that's how bad it is). I thought "I'll upgrade from the 1500 (stock) mah to 2000" It helped, a little bit most because I had an extra battery that I could always have charged. My girlfriend got the 3500 MAH that seemed to work for her, but if you were worried about the 4.3 in screen being too big, then you might feel like you are wearing a VCR with the 3500 mah battery.
People say " You need to root it; get task killers, kill all tasks, turn off data, turn off Bluetooth, wifi, GPS. etc" However, even after doing all these things that battery STILL couldn't handle 5-6 hours of average phone use. That means, no photos, maybe 20 minutes of talking. 20-30 texts, maybe 5 minutes of internet usage, 5 minutes of game play....In short, no matter how you slice it the battery life sucks. I presume the same will be said abou the evo shift.
5) Droid/HTC
For ever cool option that droid has, there is something about it that pisses me off equally if no more than it's pro value. for example
Cool- Very customizable
sucks- Still not very intuitive.
Cool- very cool apps and keyboards, format layouts, background animation, emulators
Sucks- slows your phone down a lot and guess what, kills the shit out of your battery
6) interchangeable memory card-- I like this and I hate this. I is good for because it can be removed, upgraded, etc. However, it makes managing apps, music, and documents kind of shitty sometimes they just don't work. Moreover, when I plugged the evo into my computer (mac) it didn't want to eject it (when i'd put music on it or anything). That being said if they can get the app management down (ie some apps don't want to exist on your memory card, they only want to exist on your phone's memory, which bogs it down, and kills battery more), but if they feature was solid I'd love it. In fact if the iphone would let you keep you music and podcasts in an external memory card, I think it would be great, so long as it was implemented properly.
7) Google maps sucks
I don't know why by the google maps feature, was either perfect or shitty, simple searches like "home depot" (or as I like to call it Home Despot) might not work, or will tell you to go somewhere there wasn't a HD. I don't know I didn't like it, and I wasn't very good. And guess what? GPS KILLS your battery!
8) I almost forgot, the location of the "home button" to take it out of sleep Is TERRIBLE it's where the power button is on the iphone is and it's just as small and not ergonomically sound.
I am not really done but I'd like to sum up because this is just getting ridiculously long for something that was suppose to be simple.
Evo- Could be great, Droid is very innovative but still isn't very solid. BATTERY SUX,
Iphone- hardware needs work, not very customizable, but simple and easy to use, better battery life than Evo.
I'd choose the iphone 4 even though ATT sucks, I don't know much about Verizon, but I don't think it can be that bad.
As for now I am using my brother's iphone 3G, old school style, and you know what? I honestly don't mind! I haven't charged it all day 15 hours so far, I've talked on the phone for about an hour, used my internet briefly, downloaded 2 apps, one was a big one over wifi, listened to music as I went for a jog about 20 min and I still have about 25-30% battery life. This will be fine until i5 (that's what I'd call it) or iphone 5 comes out this summer, which I am waiting for.
For the record, I do like most of Apple products, but I would be happy to buy something that worked better or that was better than an iphone. I didn't have a terrible experience with Droid, I just didn't know what to expect, some days I was content and others I was annoyed; however I see a lot of potential in Droid.
Somethings are worth your time, other things are BS
